I have surprisingly few photographs documenting all the traveling my family did during my childhood. We did road trips, ski weekends, bus tours, and long hikes in a fairly expansive list of countries, but the evidence is sparse. The few pictures we have together as a family are rigid and awkward: everyone stands a little stiffly next to each other, bodies perpendicular to the ground, arms at sides. Smiles often closed-lips. The only feature linking us as a family is the identical white flashes against our round-framed glasses – we are all heavily nearsighted. I promise we actually did have fun!

Post graduation, it’s harder to find time for a family trip. With multiple schedules in seemingly perpetual misalignment, there are few travel windows available. I’ll admit that I’m lazy about the actual planning and I am quite averse to long flights so I’ve been a bit of a bottleneck in the whole situation.

But we’re a family who experiences countries through food, if not photographs, and that’s where services like Try the World can be so handy! I recently received the Sweden box, which came stuffed with an assortment of unfamiliar snacks and treats: elderflower syrup, lingonberry jam, and rosehip fudge to name a few. They disappeared quickly, devoured in a whirlwind mix of authentic and inauthentic meals.

One such completely inauthentic use of the ingredients provided: Löfbergs ground coffee energy bites. They’re vegan and 100% free of refined sugars, plus they pack a crazy protein, fiber, and flavor punch. Sweet potato, banana, and black beans are my new magical combo base for baking everything! I’ve been snacking on them pre and post-workout; this fitness-friendly brownie type concoction is definitely becoming a daily habit.

A big thank you to Try the World for providing the service and snacks for this post – can’t wait to bring international exploration a little closer to home!

If there was one thing our house was never short of, it was ice cream. Our freezer was jam-packed with gallon-size cartons, and whatever frozen ingredients were needed for cooking dinner were balanced in the empty spaces. This division of real estate was driven by the fact that Edy's ice cream was constantly on sale at our local grocery store. Regardless of how much was still left in storage, my dad would always return with another pair of our favorite flavors. And no matter how often the 2 for $5 special popped up on our radar, it was never any less compelling.

This unconditional passion for sales didn't really apply to anything but ice cream. In general, even if items like clothing or appliances were deeply discounted, my pragmatic parents didn't make purchases unless we were in serious need of something new. We never shopped Black Friday, because the only thing more economical than something bought cheap is something not bought at all! Their philosophy persists to this day. In lieu of Netflix, my parents borrow DVD's from the library and try to coax our poor aged DVD player to accept them; you can hear it wheezing and choking on the disks as error messages flash across the screen. But if you tap it gently, switch back and forth between modes, and pray to the pagan technology gods, it might actually play something for a couple hours. We typically will borrow multiple movies as a precaution - among the assortment, one may cooperate. DVD players are on sale more often than not (who even buys them anymore?) but my parents are squeezing ours to the very dregs of its useful life.

But ice cream... for some reason, these deals were and still are irresistible, the single exception to their shopping principles. And it wasn't even to accumulate a variety of flavors! We always stuck to Rocky Road and vanilla; often we'd find ourselves stocked double or triple deep in each. It's a testament to our family's ridiculous sweet tooth, plus an alarming pace of ice cream consumption. Now, to honor my Edy's-filled childhood, I've made this Matcha Mochi Rocky Road.

It's embarrassingly simple - melt chocolate and toss in biscuits, nuts, and other fillings. Dust with matcha and done deal! I've swapped out the traditional marshmallows for homemade mochi cubes, which I personally prefer since they're delightfully chewy and much less sweet, as to not overpower the delicate matcha. The shards are completely addicting on their own, or as a topping for - what else? the inevitable! - ice cream.

Chop half the graham crackers / digestive biscuits into large chunks; break the almonds into a mix of rubble and whole / half almonds.

Over a pot of simmering water, melt HALF of the chocolate, stirring constantly. When all the chocolate is melted, remove from heat and stir in the remaining chopped chocolate. This is a shortcut/cheater's temper (tempering chocolate is finicky but this does the trick well enough).

Lay the whole (unchopped) digestive biscuits over a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Pour the chocolate over the biscuits, then top with the remaining crushed biscuits, almonds, matcha, and coconut. Dust with the matcha powder.

Transfer the sheet to the fridge and let cool/harden for about an hour. Chop into large chunks and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator - will keep for a week, if it lasts that long!

Mochi Recipe (makes about 1.5 cups)

1 cup mochi flour

1/2 - 2/3 cup sugar

3/4 cup water

Potato starch

Mix mochi flour, sugar, and water in a microwave-proof bowl. Microwave covered lightly with plastic wrap for one minute, then remove the wrap and stir. Continue to microwave uncovered in 30 second intervals until the mochi is fairly firm, very sticky (takes around 2 minutes total depending on your microwave). Dust a board with potato starch, and when the mochi is still warm but cool enough to handle, chop into small cubes and toss with potato starch.

There’s nothing I find more soothing than the smell of coffee, but drinking a single cup will send me into nervous jitters for hours. I don’t deal well with caffeine; I’m already a type-A insomniac so the extra boost does more harm than good. This is a little unfortunate because the bold, bitter, earthy flavor of coffee is one I never tire of.

I’m a little surprised that I don’t see the red bean / espresso combo more frequently, because they pair extraordinarily well. These teacakes taste luscious and dark, indulgent without actually being very sweet. It’s exactly what I’m in the mood for these days.

Proof the yeast: Heat the milk to ~100-110 degrees, slightly warm but not hot to the touch. Dissolve the sugar in the milk and add the yeast. Let sit for 10 minutes until foamy and fragrant.

Make the dough: Mix the salt and flour in a bowl. Stir in the milk/yeast, softened butter, egg, and vanilla. Mix with a large wooden spoon until well-combined and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, but under-mixing is not an issue here. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 1 - 1 1/2 hours, until it's poofy and a little under doubled in size (won't fully double - this is ok).

Make the streusel: Combine brown sugar, flour, and coffee, and mix well. Cut in the butter cubes until you have the consistency of coarse crumbs; can be done by hand or by food processor.

Assemble: Grease a muffin tray with butter or neutral oil. Punch down the dough and remove all the air. Put approximately 1 tbsp of dough into each cavity, then add red bean paste, and top with 1 more tbsp of dough. Try to smooth out/cover the red bean paste fully, but it's not critical. Let sit for 15 minutes, then top with streusel.

I have a raging sweet tooth, but I’ve never really liked candy. Halloween trick-or-treating was always much more about the process than the product; my loot would remain almost untouched for a year, at which point my parents would contemplate the morality of re-distributing aged candy to the next round of kids. Don’t worry, West Windsor residents – I don’t think we actually ever did this, and even if we did sneak stray pieces in here or there, you guys grew up fine!

The weird thing is, I loved vegetables (and still do). When I was really little, I would eat my leafy greens so fast and with such excitement that I would regularly choke on the longer pieces. My mom had to remind me to take smaller bites and actually chew them to prevent an early death by asphyxiation.

But back to a more relatable subject – sugar! I may not like candy, but I can’t resist good quality chocolate melted down and mixed into baked goods. Insomnia Cookies were a huge weakness of mine in college. They offered late-night delivery but there was a minimum charge that was most optimally met by the combination of six large cookies and a bottle of milk. They’d arrive still warm, with melted chocolate streaks marking the wax paper wrappings already translucent with a buttery sheen. I should’ve shared these, but I never did; maybe I was subconsciously making up for two decades of sugar-free Halloweens. I definitely did not think through the fact that I was eating a single day’s worth of calories with every delivery.

These cookies are slightly less sinful, a little lower on sugar and butter than other cookie recipes. Lower sugar means the chocolate really speaks; the only issue with reducing sugar, as I’ve discussed before, is that you lose moisture and compromise texture. So I used dark brown sugar, which not only has a more complex flavor, but has a higher liquid content due to the molasses and makes for a fudgier cookie. The taste that I really wanted to stand out was the gochugaru, which is a Korean chili flake that pairs surprisingly well with chocolate. It’s similar to paprika – the spice profile is a round full heat rather than a sharp snappy bite. Gochugaru doesn’t have the smoky element, however, so I think of it as more of a pure spice.

At first, the chocolate is the dominant taste in the cookie, but the gochujgaru peeks in a few seconds later and slowly expands across the palate. Crunchy walnuts add texture and fragrance. My younger self would’ve been pretty grossed out by the thought of a spicy cookie, but I love these bold sweet bites.

Chocolate Gochugaru Cookies Recipe (makes 20-24)

Ingredients

6 oz semisweet (63%) chocolate, melted (I use Scharffen Berger)

2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp gochugaru chili flakes

4 tbsp softened unsalted butter

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tbsp vanilla extract

1 cup chopped walnuts

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and chili flakes in a bowl; set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat the eggs and add the vanilla. Slowly, add egg mixture to the butter/sugar, whisking all the while so the mixture does not break. It's important to add gradually, particularly as there is a fairly low ratio of butter/sugar to egg. If the mixture does break, you can rescue it by whisking in some flour.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Add in the chopped walnuts.

Chill the cookie dough (it should be pretty soft and not too firm) for four hours or overnight in the fridge. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Scoop the dough into golf ball sized spheres and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, around 1.5-2 inches apart. They won't spread a ton because the dough has been chilled; if you prefer a flatter cookie, then don't chill the dough. Bake for 12-14 minutes - they are ready when the tops are slightly cracked but still a little shiny.

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Knead for Perspective is a blog devoted to food and food narratives. Most recipes are hybrids of the tastes and techniques of various different cultures, and reflect my experiences as an Asian American.